Sierra Nevada brewing tanks bound for NC

Workers attach a massive beer brewing tank onto a flatbed trailer at the port in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, March 12, 2013. The tank, which arrived by ship from Germany, is being shipped to a new Sierra Nevada Brewing Company brewery being built in Mills River, N.C.

AP

Staff and wire reports

Published: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 4:29 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 4:29 p.m.

From staff, wire reports

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Something big was on tap at the Port of Charleston on Tuesday as workers unloaded 28 mammoth beer brewing tanks for the new Sierra Nevada brewery in Mills River.

The tanks, shipped from Germany and some of them big enough to hold 3,200 kegs of beer, were lifted by an overhead crane off a ship, swung over the pier and then loaded onto flatbed trailers. They were taken to another part of the port for temporary storage and will be trucked to Henderson County in a few days. Bill Manley, the director of product development for Sierra Nevada, said the tanks were ordered from Germany because tanks from there are also used to make beer at the company’s original brewery.

“Our brewery in Chico, Calif., has the same equipment, and we want to make sure with this new brewery that the dimensions of the tank and the make of the tank is the same that we have in California. We’re trying to match the flavor profiles of the beers from both breweries,” he said.

But the Mills River plant will be using North Carolina water, not that from California, Manley said.

“The water on our site in Mills River is excellent, excellent brewing water,” he said. “We can adjust the minerality in the water so we can match the Chico water exactly from a chemical standpoint. So that should be no problem at all, and the other raw materials are going to come from the same sources.”

Brian Grossman, co-manager of the Mills River plant, told the Times-News last week the massive project still is on schedule to begin brewing test batches of beer by July.

“We’ve got a really great project manager who did our ’97 expansion (to the Chico brewery) as well,” Grossman said, “so he understands what it takes, and he’s budgeted time for things like Mother Nature and shipping (issues), but so far those things haven’t dipped into the timeline.”

This past week, Sierra Nevada posted 13 positions for the Mills River operation. The company is hiring six brewers, six packaging operators and one packaging supervisor.

Grossman added that every day he walks through the construction site, there is an air of excitement about getting the operation up and running.

Scott Jennings, the Mills River head brewer who recently moved his family to WNC from Chico, said he got the same impression during a tour of the site last week.

“I honestly don’t think I have ever in my life seen a busier job site — ever,” Jennings said. “It’s incredible the amount of activity that’s going on there. I was so amazed and impressed and blown away by how busy and fast-paced it is. It’s really amazing to see the skill and perseverance to adapt and push through the cold weather, the rain, the snow — it’s unbelievable.”

The first major part of the brewery being installed is the bottling line, with Grossman and his father, Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman, part of the construction team.

In his blog on the Sierra Nevada website, Brian Grossman wrote that the packaging facility “is the most technologically advanced section of a brewery. … Thousands of moving parts, acres of glass, logistical witchcraft and scrupulous monitoring and sanitation are all necessary to ensure the best quality product is packaged and shipped out the door to the right place at the right time with the right labels.”

The state-of-the-art technology will include a bottle filler capable of producing about 900 bottles of beer a minute, Brian Grossman said.

Brian Grossman and Jennings stressed that the Sierra Nevada team right now is focused strongly on beer production to meet ever-growing demand, and that the restaurant, tap room, tours and other parts of the customer experience likely won’t be open for the public until mid-2014.

“There’s still going to be a lot of heavy equipment out there, even when we’re ready to brew,” Jennings said, “so we won’t be ready to accept visitors right away. The goal is to make it so as soon as we possibly can, and when we get there, it will be very, very visitor-focused. That’s part of the design plan. We are very, very excited for people to come and see what we’re building out there, but we need to be ready.”

The Associated Press and Times-News Correspondent Gary Glancy contributed to this report.

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